Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/280

 changes its aspect. The ground, where it is not sand and stones, is mud, impeding the march at every step. For a short time the well-moistened surface exhibits no trace of life. "Nothing green," says McKinlay's journal of 13th February, the third day after starting, "except in the bed of the creek and the trees. The whole country looks as if it had been carefully ploughed, harrowed, and finally rolled, the farmer having omitted the seed." This naked, lifeless aspect soon, however, disappears beneath the verdure called forth by the moisture and the warm air. The plains become covered with pasture. Even "the stony hills and slopes," says McKinlay, on 8th March, "where, from their bronzed and desert appearance a few days ago, one would suppose grass never grew, are now being clothed in many places with a nice green coating, and shortly will give this place quite a lively appearance. When I first saw it, it was as desolate a looking spot as one could picture." He goes on to say, on 19th March, "passed through some magnificent country—one plain extending several miles, and well grassed. The weather, magnificent and quite tropical; the perfume of the flowers quite refreshing." Mr. Davis's account, further on in this chapter, is even more striking. The reader must remember that we are here still in the great Stony Desert, a fact of which the leader's journal keeps us well in mind, for it is stated, after